By Philip Drucker
Just Say No to The New Jim Crow
By Philip Drucker
Read a headline this morning alluding to Mitch McConnell is rattled. I would say rat-tailed, but that wouldn’t exactly be heading news. We’ve all known that, some of us for years. All the way back to when The McCain-Feingold Act was enacted to rein-in the excesses of campaign contributions, expenditures and lack of transparency on display in bunches as part of Nixon’s 1972 run to Re-Elect the President.
Through a series of bad faith dirty tricks culminating in several unfortunate decisions by the Supreme Court by which Mitch “I never saw a dollar I didn’t like and am willing to do whatever it takes to put in my or my wife’s already silver lined and treasonous pockets” McConnell managed to gut the Act to the point where all that is left after Citizens’ United is a couple of teeth-less and weak-kneed requirements related to disclosures of political campaign donations.
Unless of course you are wealthy and can skirt even this law by starting a property numbered for tax purposes Super-Pac or some mythical device that magically launders the amount and identity of the persons who own it. Nice huh? Of course, Mitch & Co. are now directly receiving bribes to skim off, or according to him, desperately needed funds for Aluminum plants in Kentucky that will never be built. Money laundering 101.
And so, here we find ourselves in 2020 awash in deep dark political waters where slush funds are now if not legal, alive and well and being blatantly used by the Trump campaign to quite frankly do anything his campaign managers (which one is it now? Want to do with it, except campaign. Never have I ever seen a campaign with so many ostrich leather jackets, nice, sporty cars and trips to places where there is no need to capture or shore up their number, on campaign donations taking place in the open and without even a shred of decency to be found.
But then again, how many times have you herd/heard the words Trump and decency in the same sentence? That Titanic sailed long ago and all that is left is an iceberg, too few lifeboats, a last ditch but ultimately unsuccessful stab at transforming America into some hybrid monster of autocracy, theology, and continued Russian influence led by an Individual-1 clearly unstable, unfit to lead anyone, anywhere except to his “Plan B” that is now best described at letting the Covid-19 virus discourage, and then kill as many potential voters in blue states.
Now I’m just writing out loud, but my other “gut” reaction to the potential harm done to the American public for his shot at re-election, and assuming Trump is unsuccessful, will he run for Governor of Florida? And once elected, will he try to turn a much more hospitable Florida environment into a separate nation? Maybe drag a few other states into the mix? In short, are we looking at the New Confederate States of Propagandia Trumpalandia? Mitch didn’t pack the courts for something as trivial and meaningless to him as limiting abortion rights. Mitch just goes with whatever right-wing culture war he thinks will appease his lemming followers into re-electing him forever. Since, or at least he certainly acts like he’s never going to die.
Because he lives, we might die for as long as he is the Senate Majority Leader his lack of support for true health care for everyone who needs it, eventually all of us, his insistence in promoting irresponsible gun ownership as an absolute unassailable right under the Second Amendment, or due to general and openly disgust and lack of any compassion for the people who Constitutionally speaking, it is his duty to protect.
And then there were the latest polls in Kentucky, or at least the ones Mitch paid for that are somehow the only “accurate” polling being done in Trumplandia (See? It just rolls off the silver and forked tongue, doesn’t it?) that has Mitch beating McGrath by whatever numbers and percentage sounded good that day.
Or, they really ARE going to vote for that son-of-a-bitch-ass-punk haven’t you been stabbed in the back enough already, what more could he possibly do than continue to lie to their faces about coal coming back and racism and greed and more confederate statues coming your way soon, as the new, ordained by Him, order of the Republic and the law of the land?
It goes hand in hand with an analysis of why Kentucky will almost surely go for Trump in 2020. I can understand why Kentuckians were never pleased with the cold shoulder you’ll become a coder or something like that, Hillary Clinton gave them, but, in hindsight, she never did lie to them, did she? Whereas that is all Trump and McConnell do. The terrible truth, or the beautiful lie? Which side of the philosophical line do you fall on? Accurate information concerning the nasty and deadly as they come, easy to transmit (Trumps words, not mine) Covid-19 virus?
Or the herd immunity/mentality latest White House/CDC completely debunked and scientifically unsound theory that at best estimates if carried out, will kill a minimum of 3M more people. Or, as I mentioned above, you are willing to believe it is God’s will that only blue states will be affected, because my pastor on Sundays told us so.
It leads me at ask, so why are the good, but perhaps somewhat mistaken about their future residents of the Bluegrass State taking the bait? The best way I can explain it is they still love their old times when the carnival came to town and the world was filled with wonders, some real other deliberately fake, to challenge their ability to ascertain the “real” truth before they lose their last nickel to P.T. “there’s a sucker born every minute” Barnum. As they love their no socialism except to support corporations, making they all get their bonuses from which, now that corporations have a “voice” can fulfill their campaign pledges, to Mitch and their savior who also lied repeatedly about saving an industry with no consumer demand for its dirty coal so who is going to buy it? Trump.
Easy. Trump is the ultimate circus barker. He’s loud flashy, surrounded by oddities and events that may, or may not be real. Politically, Trump is a “one-trick pony” always has been until he is a has been and even then, always will. You see, Trump doesn’t care if his supporters love him or not. He just needs to know who they hate. His trick? It is much easier to get someone to vote out of anger, hatred and rage, than it is to garner votes from an actual realistic assessment from someone who doesn’t believe in political fairy-tales for myths.
And so, he divides and conquers and in a fluke of the clearly obsolete Electoral College and probably a little election rigging, Trump got to put on the Top Hat and has led his three-ring circus since day one. One last question? If this is so, and it is, how exactly do the Trump supporters not only in Kentucky but in many different states, hate? The answer is us.
They hate us, Democrats, Godless socialists who are in “reality” one big pedophile ring buying and selling children like Jeffrey Epstein and Company, including Trump, until QAnon and the Trump secret war against the “deep state” is finally defeated. In the meantime, they want to punish us, and that, they know for a fact Trump has done and will undoubtedly if, re-elected, continue to do.
Lately, what I have been experiencing with my conservative friends, once you get over the insults, and the magical memes that now take the place of actual research, what you get is for the most part a plea, or perhaps a scream for help. They want to be listened to, their grievances heard, and they want “us” to do something about it.
Moving a step forward, they don’t understand for instance why we in California are approving of or even complicit on some level with taking away their jobs and sending them overseas. For my part, I can understand why a family facing foreclosure, electricity and water bills, medical bills and with manufacturing not coming back, they might look to us for help. But, alas, the problem they wish to solve includes a price too big for us to pay, and IMHO we should not.
California is the world’s 5th largest economy. We are diverse, and because of our steady progress removing us from the effects of continued use of fossil fuels, and get this, helping those who need help, we are for the most part immune (for at least a little while) from the effects of the overall American economy, you know the one that is in freefall courtesy of your chosen anointed one? The one you are feeling, and we do not?
Let’s just say there are a lot delusional voters out there who most displeased that we don’t drink the kook-aid, and are not falling for the Trump imaginary illusion of a healthy economy coming back any minute now, plague be damned ,that not us, but "they" have fallen prey to because "they" chose a madman to lead them, who offered them nothing but a handful of magic beans and the promise of a beanstalk to climb, a castle in the clouds and a giant (the deep state) to slay. Life in the main tent to be sure, but delusional, and dangerous a philosophy to follow as it comes.
You might have been surprised at my earlier comment I do not see it necessary or now, even wise to “bail them out” for the price of our commitment to them and their ideals of American life and economic justice is too high to tolerate and, I believe would continue to unravel our American democracy for a return to the “good old days” including the MAGA in a nutshell white privilege and institutional racism days of Black Codes/Jim Crow era mentality.
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Let me lay it out for you in another episode of I’m just going to say it and let the chips fall moment, on top of the complete and utter inability for MAGAs to take any responsibility for their own actions (sound familiar?) their mantra is and I dare say not terribly opaque or hidden in the dog whistles that only white people who go to the one and only true house of worship. I’ll leave the identity of that holy mission, complete with their “Prosperity Gospel” part of their imagination, to your imagination.
Who are the True Americans? Is what they seem to be asking. Sparking a divisive dialogue between those who believe in a land and people devoted to equality, or the return of the “pecking order” of a society that feels it is their right, because he is white, and might vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, to place a clearly unfit, at best, judicially unequipped toady insider with a terrible Circuit Court track record for incompetence, and alcoholically challenged Brett Kavanaugh to the highest court in the land, for life.
Their faux huffiness, usually leading to more insults, memes and the occasional I’m following the teachings of Christ as an excuse for things that Jesus never said, much less did, kind of society do we expect them to live in? Heaven’s forbid one where we employ and promote POCs based on their own merit over someone who still wants to shovel coal for a living, which leads to the point of no return and our biggest of sins, electing an African American, willing to follow his oath to the Constitution, a loving, religious, one wife, no sexual scandals, competent to say the least, man of the people for all Americans period as the President of these, our United States.
Or might I say, OUR United States where diversity is promoted, not rejected. Where everyone is encouraged and welcome to get an education, find meaningful employment and rise or fall while competing on a level playing field based on their talent, drive, able to purse their happiness without interference from those who would deny any but their own to do so.
I don’t know about you, but a return to the deplorable, stain on our history days of white supremacy uber alles is an untenable trade for a past culture far better cancelled, rather than allowing back into the normal social and political discourse of the day, much less implement laws that would for all intents and purposes take us back into the darkness and ignorance, pain, degradation and suffering of what is at its core, as evil an institution as this world has ever seen. Slavery, with all the badges of involuntary servitude, white privilege included, must never be allowed back into OUR great country.
Lastly, and not be beat a dead elephant, coming soon to a ballot box near you, but I feel it necessary to point out many of our “fly over” brother and sisters in America, the need for an honest and true dialogue concerning reconciliation is necessary and I believe will come to pass. But know this, we are fully aware you were present, front and center stage when it was left to you to save yourselves. You watched your jobs go away, sent to foreign countries with lower labor costs, but you continued to elect politicians who not only continued but through their action, inaction and ever present lip-service.
And now you want to punish us? For you being willing accomplices before, during and after the fact for the madness of King Trump? The obvious dementia and degradation of our system you yourself endured in the interest of, well, now that you have seen the results of your consent to be governed by not a monarch but a court jester, or fool, let’s skip to, well that didn’t work, so what is it you want now?
A president completely and utterly unfit to lead us a nation? Who has clearly demonstrated time and time again he has nothing but absolute scorn and contempt for, poor, poor you? Suckers? Losers? Check the box, you got that. A first lady who is an unfeeling, uncaring, ex porno star with pictures to prove it (as if proof would help) and all around no bones about it gold digger who is somehow in your fever dreams comparable to Jackie O? Taking your tax dollars so she can have her hair done in NYC, where it just so happens her latest paramour that we know about resides? Check, you got that too.
When we asked you to help us stop the deadliest pandemic to invade America since the 1918 Spanish Flu? And you threw, and continue to throw one childish hissy fit after the other, claiming your right to not wear a mask, get a haircut and your nails done are all the hallmarks of American individualism? And worth risking lives over much less even fighting for?
Yeah, it’s true, we’ll be here when you finally come back to your senses. We always are. But know this, we will not forget the hatred you threw on us in what is now a very thinly veiled attempt to punish us, for what are your own shortfalls, foibles, follies, and yes, sins.
In closing, (whew!) we are ready to sit down at the round table with you, but for heaven’s sake, please leave your bigotry and sense of entitlement at the door and please, please wear your mask? Or else we’re just going home, to our land of tolerance, our still stable economy.
We will be there waiting for you call when you decide it’s time to grow up and take responsibility (sound familiar?) for your ongoing role in enabling a monster without a conscience to remain in office, despite what we all now know are real, no alternative spin needed, and indisputable FACTS surrounding and attributable to the abject failure of the Trump administration to our country.
Until then, we will continue along our own constitutional path with our natural, God given rights to pursue our bright future, with or with or you. It’s like that. Yes, it is. But it doesn’t have to be. Dig?
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